


when we've been here for a thousand years

by isawet



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:00:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawet/pseuds/isawet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid centric. Dealing with working in the fringe, and alongside Olivia Dunham, and coming to terms with all of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when we've been here for a thousand years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hibernate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hibernate/gifts).



Astrid wanted to be a pediatrician. When she was a little girl her mother bought her a plastic box with a rubber stethoscope and a pen shaped like a syringe, and every year on her birthday and Christmas she got another cheap kiddy replication of a doctor’s tool. Astrid used to slide in her socks on the hardwood floor wearing scrubs and latex gloves, the kind that hung too big on her hands and left white powder on her fingertips, and listen for the heartbeat in her sofa and television. Her father sent her postcards from faraway places and signed every one of them _be good, baby girl_.

On her sixth birthday her father sends her a book on computers and her mother brings her home a broken computer from work. She rips it apart from the outside in and sits in the parts, searching for the ones that fit together.

She graduates with honours from Harvard as a double major and it turns out that doesn’t count as much as she thought it would. The bills are piling up and she’s still working as a waitress and a tutor, odd hours and little profit. She likes the look of the FBI website, likes the job security and the feeling she could change the world.

 

 

The first time Walter gets distracted while cutting with a bonesaw he slips and there’s brains and blood and bits of bone in her hair, warm from the friction of the saw and wet and slick against her scalp.

“Oops,” says Walter, and starts talking about the exact ratio of milk and Nesquick for perfect chocolate milk. Astrid excuses herself to the bathroom, corrects him when he calls her Asterisk, and sticks her head under the sink, fingers shaking as the water runs red and pink. She reaches for paper-towels and closes her eyes as she finds the dispenser empty. Agent Dunham blows through the door.

“Agent Farnsworth,” she says briskly, nose buried in a thin manila file, “I need you to—” She looks up and stops short. Astrid looks back at her, miserable, and her hair drips onto the floor and down her back, dampening the collar of her shirt.

“Walter,” she offers as an explanation, and Agent Dunham gives her a small smile.

“Ah,” she says, and nods. She reaches over to the opposite wall and rips off a few sheets of paper towels. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Astrid mumbles, and gingerly starts to patdry her hair. Agent Dunham watches her, silent, and Astrid feels awkward.

“You needed something, Agent Dunham?” she asks, and Agent Dunham jolts.

“Ah, yes. I need you to come along with Walter and I to the crime scene. Peter is running a simulation in the lab, and I need someone to—”

“Watch Walter,” Astrid finishes, and Agent Dunham gives her that small smile again.

“In short,” she agrees. Astrid nods, and throws the towels into the trashcan, leans in to check her hair in the dingy mirror.

“Here,” Agent Dunham says, and offers her a small comb, flicking the purse lint off it. Astrid doesn’t have the heart to tell her that wouldn’t do anything for her kind of hair.

“Thanks,” she says, and Agent Dunham flips the folder open again.

“Meet you in the car in five,” she says, all business again, and Astrid nods.

 

 

Every so often they catch a case they think is fringe related but turns out to be just another example of the atrocities human beings can commit on one another with their own two hands and the simplest laws of physics. The ones with kids are the worst, and after the last form has been filled out and Walter has left with Peter, Astrid slumps on a bench in front of the parking lot and watches drunken college kids stumble by, linked arm in arm and drinking vodka and juice from plastic bottles with the labels peeled off.

“Agent Farnsworth?” a voice asks, and Agent Dunham is standing there, looking drawn and tired.

“Why did we keep the case?” Astrid blurts before she can stop herself, “As soon as we knew it wasn’t a fringe case, we could, we could have…” she trails off and bites her lip. Agent Dunham sighs, and takes a seat next to her.

“I thought,” she says, and then frowns. “The average detective has over twenty open cases. We’d already worked the case for two days, and we had several solid leads and a narrowed suspect list. It was a pretty easy case, all things considered, and I thought we should finish it. I _wanted_ to finish it.”

 _All things considered,_ Astrid thinks, and remembers how all four of the children’s eyes were open until Walter weighted them shut for her, and the way she had to write the autopsy report with the clinical listings of the bruises fractures broken bones lacerations blunt force trauma evidence of sexual abuse.

“I wanted to be a pediatrician,” she says, and gropes for more words. Agent Dunham waits for her, quietly.

“I wanted to change the world,” she says, and sighs. Agent Dunham shifts on the bench next to her, and her warmth is nice in the cooling air of the evening.

“Well today we did,” she says, and it would be corny coming from anybody else. Astrid smiles slightly and moves to stand up.

“Good night Agent Dunham,” she says, and when she turns to go a hand catches hers.

“Olivia,” Agent Dunham says, and smiles the tiny smile she usually saves for Peter and Charlie. She looks as tired as Astrid feels.

“Astrid,” she reciprocates, and they smile at each other before Olivia lets go and Astrid tucks her hands into her pockets and heads for her car. Her fingers feel colder than they did when she was sitting on the bench.

 

 

Walter is telling her how all he needs is the perfect current to permanently reanimate corpses, waving his hands and flinging rice and mushu beef in the air when Astrid answers the phone, smiling.

“Bishops’ Zombie Apocalypse,” she says dryly, and picks Chinese broccoli debris off her forty dollar slacks.

“Astrid,” Olivia snaps hurriedly, and Astrid can hear tires screeching and Peter cursing in the background, “Astrid, there are people coming, I need you to get Walter, _get Walter and get out._ ” There’s a click as she hangs up, and Astrid stands for a split second, frozen, before the clatter of the phone falling from numb fingers jolts her into action.

“Walter!” she calls, and kicks off her high heels, fumbling through papers and files digging for her keys, knocking glossy crime scene photos and glass lab equipment from the table. Walter wanders in from the back room, smiling, smelling like sweet heavy smoke, holding something slim and white and handrolled. Astrid can hear her heart pounding in her ears and her breath is harsh and panicky. She grabs him and drags him out the door, stumbling in her haste, and turns towards the parking lot, just as she sees two men in business suits and tattoos with their right hands in their pockets come in, peering above the sea of chattering teenagers. She turns down the hallway, pulling Walter after her, and gropes for her badge as she ducks into the first classroom she sees students in.

“FBI,” she snaps, flashing her badge, and shoves Walter down into a corner. The class and teacher stare at her, surprised, as she walks quickly to the front of the room, one eye on the door window.

“We at the FBI,” she stutters, suddenly very aware of the expectant stares being directed at her, desperately groping for something to say. “We at the FBI—” There’s a flash of blonde in the window, and Olivia gives her a thumbs up and a smile.

“Want you to stay in school,” she finishes in a rush, and flees, grabbing Walter on her way out and snatching his joint out of a bewildered looking girl’s hand.

 

“You did good, Astrid,” Olivia says later, smiling, and Astrid tries to hide the shake in her hands and voice when she thanks her.

 

Even later, Olivia drives her home and heats up leftovers and they sit on Astrid’s couch and drink her emergency bottle of wine and Olivia doesn’t judge her for crying, just a little, and for saying she wished sometimes she’d never met any of them.

 

 

“I’m an assistant!” Astrid says, and resists the urge to wave her hands in the air, “you want me to schedule an appointment, build a computer, even _crack an obscure mathematical code_ , I can do that. I am not a mortician, I am not a, a, a—a babysitter!” She reels around, hands on her hips and out of breath, banging her elbow on a stall door, and frowns at Olivia, who’s leaning against cracked white tiles, long lean lines and tumbling ice blonde hair.

“You don’t want to quit,” Olivia says easily, and Astrid sighs.

“I know,” she says, and moves to splash water on her face. “How is Walter?” Olivia laughs, lowly, and her hair falls in a curtain across her face.

“Hiding behind Gene, practicing apologies.” Astrid sighs again, and wonders where she would be now, if she hadn’t been assigned to Olivia, if she would be somewhere better than in the basement women’s bathroom in a Harvard science building, waiting to hear stumbling apologies from a child minded genius who plays with dead things. Then she splashes water on her face and turns to follow Olivia out the door and into the fringe.

 

 

When Peter calls her and tells her to sit down, she thought that Walter had finally wandered onto a street and been struck by car, that she’d been fired because of the blender incident the week before, that they’d just discovered the world was about to explode and there was nothing anyone could do. When he says softly that Olivia’s been in an accident and his voice breaks, her heart stutters in her chest. She speaks around the lump in her throat to remind him to call Rachel, and assures him she’ll be at the hospital as soon as she can. Then she sits on her couch and listens to the clock her mother gave her for her birthday, in the shape of Minnie Mouse, click its way around smiling cartoon characters for two minutes before she gathers herself to get up, get her keys, her coat, and drive five miles below the speed limit to the hospital.

 

When Peter calls from his apartment and asks for her help, she hails a taxi and he meets her at the door before she can knock.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is hoarse and rough and his eyes are shot through with red and the brightness of his pupil. He leaves and Astrid settles Walter on the couch with a glass of water and a bucket. His eyes are wide and glazed, and every time he tries to say something it gets muddled by the drugs and the alcohol.

 _I have heard the mermaids singing,_ he whispers and Astrid curls into the armchair under a blanket she took from the hallway closet and tries not to cry.

 _I do not think they will sing to me,_ he says, and then _olive_ in that whisper he makes when he remembers something from before his mind fractured and slipped away. He sounds sad. Astrid closes her eyes and waits for Peter to come home.

 

When Peter calls and tells her that Olivia has woken up and is fine, and that there is a body on the way to the lab, she agrees to meet them there, pulls on a jacket and her shoes, and sits on the edge of her bed and cries hysterically for half an hour.

 

Astrid comes to the hospital later, when the shapeshifter has been dealt with and Peter is taking Walter home, and uses her badge to slip past the visiting hours regulations. Olivia is sleeping the sleep of grade A pain medication and sedatives, and Astrid settles in next to her bed, in the cold plastic chairs with the cheap green felt seat and the rickety legs.

When Olivia wakes up, jolting and disoriented, Astrid is reading to her _I have measured my life out in coffee spoons,_ and she smiles lightly before closing her eyes and going back to sleep.

 

 

Astrid was the one to help Walter dissect Charlie-that-wasn’t-Charlie after Olivia killed him, and Walter went out with Peter and brought back his--its body. Walter talks of mercury based organisms and learning more about the very enemy that can replicate us, and Astrid hands him sharpened shining tools she sterilized herself, three wipes with an antibacterial solution, two wipes with a polisher, once through the sharpener, laid on a tray by classification and then by size. She did it earlier while she tried not to remember Agent Francis conducting her interview, Agent Francis telling her that he’s assigning her to a good agent that will look out for her, his friend he called Liv on the phone, Agent Francis telling her to call him Charlie.

When Walter does the long y incision and silver poison seeps out she gags and has to excuse herself to the bathroom to splash water on her face and redo her makeup.

 

It’s late, now, and Peter had taken Walter home hours ago, and Astrid is straightening the paperwork and checking to make sure Walter hadn’t left the hotplate plugged in, or the gas on, and she stops to pat Gene on the flank and refill his water.

She steps towards the door and almost smacks into Olivia coming in, looking worn. “Olivia,” she mumbles, avoiding her eyes, and she sees Olivia dip her head in acknowledgement. She heads for the table where she keep her folders and her forms. She’s not quite in her work clothes, not tailored slacks that hug her hips but jeans with genuine wears in the knees and the pantlegs, a t shirt that declares her property of the FBI instead of a clean cut button up, running sneakers with dirty laces and worn down soles.

Astrid is struck by the fond way Agent Francis had always spoken of Olivia, the easy way they bantered and the concern they’ve always shown each other, the willingness to break rule and trust far-out hunches.

“I liked Agent Francis,” she blurts, and kicks herself mentally for such a lame offering of support. She’d desperately wanted to avoid mentioning _your loss_ or _If you want to talk_. Olivia stares at her for a moment and then relaxes faintly, some of the tension slides from her shoulders and her temples.

“I did too,” she says softly, and offers Astrid a small smile. She sits down and reaches for the first folder on the table. There’s never an end to the paperwork, at least if the federal government has anything to say about it. Astrid hesitates at the door, and thinks about her evening—takeout, television, itunes, paperback. She thinks about how Olivia could have gone to the backroom to fill out forms. She closes the door firmly and switches the television to TV Land, reruns of I Love Lucy and Bonanza. Olivia casts her a questioning glance, and she smiles awkwardly.

“Gene has to be brushed,” she says, and Olivia smiles like she knows it to be a lie. They spend the night quietly together, with the light scratching of bristles over the cow and the scrape of Olivia’s pen on case statements in triplicate, and when they leave together Olivia’s hand trails across the small of her back as she holds the door open.

 

 

It’s not always more questions and dark endings and sweat stains as they try and stay two steps ahead of a plan they don’t understand undertaken by a faceless opponent. Sometimes Walter pulls out a vintage record and does the twist and shout with a joint smoking in curling wisps to the ceiling while Astrid orders Chinese and Peter pours the shots, Jose Cuervo splashing in golden waves from the thick glass rims onto scarred wood as time goes on and he gets drunker.

Astrid has waltzed to _London Calling_ with Walter and did some kind of swing with Peter to _Sergeant Pepper_ but the one that stands out clearest in her photographic memory is when Peter went through the records with stumbling fingers and found _Where the Streets Have No Name_ and when Bono’s voice cut clear and smooth in a crescendo Astrid’s fingers were linked with Olivia’s, eyes glassy from alcohol as they wiggled their hips in a mocking imitation of Peter and giggled like Astrid used to during sleepovers and in the back rows of lecture halls.

The party was broken up by campus security, of all things, who frowned quite severely when Olivia tried to pull her badge out but ended up throwing it at them instead, but were nice enough to call them a taxi. Astrid wakes up on Olivia’s couch at three in the afternoon with a pounding headache, and Olivia is there in sweatpants and a tank top, with coffee and the paper. Astrid’s fingers brush hers over the coffeepot and she remembers skipping to the yellow cab with their arms linked and Walter singing _we’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wonderful--_

 

 

“Hold still,” Olivia murmurs, and Astrid winces as she straightens her shoulders, feels the skin around her bruised cheek and eye ache as it stretches. Olivia’s fingers are gentle around her curls and the glass makes soft clinking sounds as she places it on a metal tray. “You’re lucky,” Olivia says in that same tone she uses with rattled witnesses and small children, and Astrid is slightly resentful she finds it so calming.

“I’m okay,” she says, and Olivia ignores the way her voice rolls and shakes. “Walter cleaned everything, he just forgot to make sure all the glass was out.” Olivia hums gently and brushes her hands off.

“All done,” she says easily, and Astrid is reminded by how good Olivia is with her niece, the change in her when she swings her in the air and the way she smiles when she’s called _Aunt Liv_. Olivia’s face is very close to hers, and her eyes are that dark shade between green and blue, lined with worry and strain. The fingers of her latex gloves are bright and glossy with drops of Astrid’s blood.

“You wanted to interview the mother again,” she reminds Olivia, and shifts away from her to make her heart beat slower.

“Yeah,” Olivia says, and her eyes darken before she pulls away and slips out the door, and it makes a shifting wood whisper as it closes behind her.

 

 

 _there’s a storm coming_ is what everyone keeps saying, and every week the cases get stranger and Olivia gets a little bit harder around the edges and Peter gets more distant, and when Olivia slides up against Astrid in dark parking lots after all the forms have been signed and Walter has been herded home, she kisses like raging sheets of ice and hail and rain.

But even in all her avenging drive and fury, her fingers are always gentle, and to Astrid she will always be the eye, a column of stillness in destruction and rage and ruin.


End file.
